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The Ceiling
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Night Watchman, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Power, Solidarity, and Community Action
Oppression and Supposed Good Intentions
Humor and Pain
Sex, Violence, and Gender
Agency and Exploitation
Summary
Analysis
When Elnath confronts Vernon about Grace and asks him if he’s “quitting the sin,” Vernon says that he’s quitting. The two hitch a ride into town to visit LaBatte. LaBatte has already backslid and is unwilling to get baptized or even let them in the door. They then get a ride to Grand Forks, where there’s a church member who would take them in. And they could get Milda to send them their things.
Vernon again equates sex and sin, as if there is something wrong with sex itself, while the novel as a whole suggests that the problem isn’t with sex but with how power and violence are used to exploit people, subjugate them, and erase their agency.
Themes
